dreampepper

Last August, in the lead up to the crumbling last days of Twitter AKA the Elon era, I read a tweet (by Zarina Khan) that struck me like a bell and continues to resonate, even half a year later: "My toxic trait is that I don’t feel any sense of accomplishment after achieving something. Just a mild sense of relief that it’s done." 

It's been a long time since I've felt so seen. Occasionally I wonder if this is just adulthood - the cessation of internal spark or having any kind of satisfaction from life - but I know it isn't. This is something else. And it predates the lack of blood my body currently struggles with (a symptom of which is a ever present "sense of impending doom" which rises and subsides with the tides of my periods but never leaves). I wonder, too, if there's anything I can do by myself that would be capable of turning things back on. The short answer, so far, is also no. 


When Silva required hospice, we also took in her senior cat, Rhiannon. She is a splendid cat, as long as she is the only cat. After her brother died, she was inconsolable. It's possible that she may have eventually recovered from her mourning and welcomed other cats into her life again, but when her previous cat-parents decided to get kittens, it wasn't done with delicacy or care. Rhiannon saw them replace her brother, and worse, replace her as well. As a result, Rhiannon came to us determined that she would never again suffer any other cats to live in her space. She was both the Alpha and the Omega and would stay such with two weapons: violence and urine. Unfortunately for her (and also our laundry capacity), we already had two sweetheart sisters, Kismet and Whimsy. Young and naive, our cats may have been open to the incoming adult cat, especially given that they'd been adjusting quite well to all the other rather dramatic changes: half our things in storage, strangers moving in, the living room transformed into a bedroom, and everything else Silva had managed to keep piled halfway to the ceiling in every other space. As you can guess, however, that was not to be. 

In the intervening time between their disastrous meeting and today, I have been applying endless tips and tricks from papers on CPTSD, early childhood education, positive reinforcement, research psychology, and various types of operant conditioning. Our home as Skinner box, the cats as traumatized children. And, slowly but surely, it's been working. The vicious battles subsided, replaced by skirmishes, replaced by stand-offs, replaced by irritation and disdain. There is still fear, but there are no longer panic attacks. There is hissing, but we no longer go through gallons of enzyme soap. Pee War 2021 is far behind us. 

And now, the latest victory: the contested space of the heated blanket has now become the first sleeping space they will share. When drugged by warmth and softness, they will even stretch out and touch one another and tolerate being touched by the other. 

It took about two years, but it's a tremendous win even so. And now I cannot help but meditate upon this: There may be no such thing as an untraumatized adult, but at least we can create it for our pets. How much better the world if we were all so cared for? If anxieties were soothed and bids for attention unthwarted.